This project develops information technology to design and evaluate collaborative mission concepts to observe convective storm systems. Advances in information system technology allows for greater…

This federal contract award to The Trustees of the Stevens Institute of Technology, a private research university in Hoboken, New Jersey, is for the development of information technology to design and evaluate collaborative mission concepts to observe convective storm systems. The $186,889.18 grant supports three major research thrusts, including modeling observation of convective storms from a single mission perspective, transitioning to a co-simulation platform to evaluate collaborative mission operations with partner nodes, and investigating dynamic interactions between mission partners to exchange information during operations. This project aims to advance data science and co-simulation data architectures to facilitate collaboration for the design and planning of new Earth observation strategies, as well as evaluate new collaborative mission concepts to improve understanding and modeling of dynamical processes in convective storms. The award is not subject to a small business set-aside and is part of the university's broader portfolio of federal contract and grant work supporting agencies such as the Department of Defense, NASA, National Science Foundation, and Department of Homeland Security.

This project develops information technology to design and evaluate collaborative mission concepts to observe convective storm systems. Advances in information system technology allows for greater interaction across organizational boundaries including dynamic response to emergent events. Remote sensing of convective storm systems will benefit from responsive operations to identify and monitor cloud dynamics and convective processes to better understand the formation and evolution of storm systems and the effects of climate change at regional and global scales. Future observing systems with inter-agency, international, and commercial partners constitute a system-of-systems because each partner pursues their own objectives on different development timelines. System-of-systems architecting follows more indirect principles such as identifying stable intermediate forms and exerting leverage at the interfaces. CO-simulation is an information technology for design, evaluation, and maturation of system-of-systems concepts throughout the system lifecycle. IT provides distributed control over constituent systems and allows partners to integrate constituent simulators despite differences in modeling frameworks and languages or other information sharing barriers due to legal or proprietary issues. Applied to convective storm observing systems, CO-simulation demonstrates and validates new operational concepts such as ING, scheduling, and dynamic pointing across organizational boundaries. A CO-simulation platform integrates simulation models of mission and partner nodes through a loosely coupled service-oriented architecture. Front-end mission design activities propose new mission concepts by varying the number of satellites, orbital geometry, and instrument characteristics. CO-simulation executes a joint scenario by coordinating member simulator execution across an information infrastructure. Finally, a back-end science evaluation engine maps collected scenario observations to a measure of scientific utility to evaluate effectiveness. To achieve project goals, this project proposes three major research thrusts building on prior and current efforts within the earth science community. The first thrust develops mission and science nodes to model observation of convective storm systems and corresponding scientific utility from the perspective of a single mission director for initial validation. The second thrust transitions mission nodes to a CO-simulation platform to evaluate collaborative mission operations with partner nodes and static interactions to compose observations across multiple elements. Finally, the third thrust investigates dynamic interactions between mission partners to exchange information during operations to schedule instrument pointing and monitor emergent convective storm systems. Science evaluation evaluates and quantifies the benefit of partnerships and new technology to inform future investment. Project objectives align with two major components of the 2017 earth science decadal survey. Emphasizing the role of partnerships in observing systems, this project advances data science and, specifically, CO-simulation data architectures to facilitate collaboration for design and planning of new observation strategies. On a longer timescale, this project evaluates new collaborative mission concepts capable of coordinating and collecting remote sensing data to improve physical understanding and model representations of dynamical processes in convective storms. This project complements ongoing work with the aerosols and cloud, convection, and precipitation study team seeking new mission architectures to acquire designated observables for storm dynamics.